“Civil society is the web of relationships, institutions, and everyday gathering places — from the church supper to the little league board to the volunteer fire company — through which ordinary people practice self-government in miniature, long before (and often better than) they do it in a voting booth.”  **Anthropic Claude (AI)

Well, that’s one to define it.  But we’ve got something better.  Video!

In a few minutes of video we can watch a small rural community, celebrate Memorial Day and itself and at the same time defined Civil Society in action for us.

Let’s review some of the elements of civil society just shown.

An informal, citizen-organized ceremony honoring the veterans of the town.  It was organized and designed by the citizens of the town, not the military.

A new store was opened.  After the Memorial celebration, the townspeople crowded in to see what was going to be sold inside.

The boat put in at the lake became a social place where families got together and people got to know each otherl